


Twenty-One Ways To Use a Butter Knife

by cosmicmilktea



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Blink and you'll miss the Chanbaek, Cooking, Kyungsoo is so done with the universe, M/M, Slight Kaixing, mentions of violence and murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21957787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicmilktea/pseuds/cosmicmilktea
Summary: Soulmates are ultimately the bearers of a single soul, or so they say. Thus on one's twenty-first birthday, one is expected to receive the skills that their soulmate possesses. Kyungsoo thinks cooking is a useful life skill to offer up, and often wonders what he’ll get in return. Wonders if he’ll wake up an ace juggler or worse, a selca expert - because the universe has a sense of humor like that.Instead, Kyungsoo wakes up on his twenty-first birthday knowing a hundred plus ways to kill someone, and doesn’t know what to think.
Relationships: Do Kyungsoo | D.O/Kim Jongdae | Chen
Comments: 41
Kudos: 340





	Twenty-One Ways To Use a Butter Knife

Kyungsoo wakes up on his twenty-first birthday with the feeling that he’s not alone in his room. 

To be exact, Kyungsoo wakes up with the feeling that Jongin is somewhere in his bedroom – because for years now his childhood friend has been trying to sneak up on him with one ridiculous birthday surprise after another. But something tenses up inside him this time around, and he can actually feel where Jongin is behind him. He doesn’t have the time to ruminate upon this before Jongin’s hand alights on his shoulder and Kyungsoo’s body just _moves_.

The thing about Jongin is that he’s a big guy – or at least bigger than him, most people are – All wiry muscles from dancing and capoeira practices. Which is why it doesn’t make sense when Kyungsoo grabs Jongin’s arm and flips him over, sending them both tumbling from Kyungsoo’s bed to the floor, Kyungsoo practically straddling Jongin even as his hand flew to the other boy’s jugular – index and middle fingers folded in a jabbing position to do – _what?_

His hand stops just a hair’s breadth shy of Jongin’s Adam’s apple and Kyungsoo freezes. Jongin freezes with him. 

“Hyung?” Jongin whimpers, eyes wide against Kyungsoo’s even wider ones. And because Kyungsoo believes the universe has a sense of humor, that is exactly when Chanyeol barges in, eyes widening comically to match theirs before he wolf-whistles. 

“Never thought you’re even each other’s type, but…congrats, I guess?” 

Kyungsoo wants to die. 

***

Kyungsoo has always expected to wake up on his twenty-first birthday knowing how to do something he never could before. Soulmates are ultimately the bearers of a single soul - or so they've been saying since time immemorial. Thus on one's twenty-first birthday, one is expected to receive the skills that their soulmate possesses. And although the whole logic doesn’t actually check out with him, Do Kyungsoo has lived with this knowledge his whole life - And has prepared accordingly.

Kyungsoo thinks cooking is a useful life skill to offer up - As everyone can benefit from the ability to feed oneself - and often wonders what he’ll get in return. Wonders if he’ll wake up an ace juggler or worse, a selca expert - because the universe has a sense of humor like that. 

Now that the universe has delivered what his soulmate is capable of, Kyungsoo is half bemused and half miffed that he doesn't actually know how to feel. 

“But think about it, hyung" Jongin's voice tugs at the edges of Kyungsoo's musings - The younger boy already wolfing down the special breakfast pancakes Kyungsoo just put down from his spatula. "Your soulmate must be some ace hapkido athlete or something”

From the other end of their breakfast nook, Chanyeol is also making grabby hands at the pan. The irony is not lost on Kyungsoo that he's the one who has to make his own special birthday pancakes, but he's actually okay with it. Kyungsoo loves cooking, loves the act of creating something good out of nothing and finds a certain satisfaction in seeing people enjoy the results. 

“I mean, that was some move, you know? Like you just know they’re good” Jongin continues as Kyungsoo finally sits down and helps himself to his own stack of fluffy pancakes. 

“Or maybe a pro gamer? They have like, crazy reflexes right?” Chanyeol pipes up, miming operating a mouse and keyboard with his fork even as Jongin laughs at the absurdity of his guess. 

Kyungsoo looks at the butter knife in his hand, expression carefully blank as a dozen ways to disembowel someone with the little thing flashes across his mind, and just knows that his soulmate is nothing so innocent. 

**

You can’t choose your soulmate, and just as with every other basic facts of life, Kyungsoo has learned to come to terms with this. 

“Think of it like…family“ His mother had said, once when a ten-year old Kyungsoo reneged against his teacher's admittedly shoddy explanation of the Soulmate concept “You can’t choose who your appa or amma is, right? Or who you’ll have as your hyung” 

Kyungsoo had nodded, wary yet trusting his Amma enough to let her continue. 

“But you can learn to love them, because they’re family” His mother had smiled, “Just like Seungsoo learned to love you, and you love us because we interact with each other and are there for each other from day to day. A soulmate can be like that too”

Grudgingly, ten-year old Kyungsoo had accepted his Amma's words, especially after she explained that not all soulmates have to marry each other like her and his Appa. Some soulmates become best friends, room mates, and some even live far away from each other. Eleven years later, Kyungsoo is surprised that he still finds comfort in his Amma's words. If he can work with the universe's arbitrary idea of a soulmate, then he can work with this too. He can _learn._

Which is how Kyungsoo finds himself in the aisles of a hardware store, a full wall of knives of every size and persuasion displayed in front of him. 

Whatever his soulmate is, he's very knowledgeable with sharp things. Frighteningly so. Kyungsoo has done his service, and he’s pretty sure that none of the things in his head is covered in any of their training, and so that leaves him with an array of more unsavory options. At best, his soulmate could be a black ops operative, a triad member, or at worst – A deranged serial killer. 

Kyungsoo runs his hands through the display in front of him, the glint of countless blades reflecting back against his glasses as a myriad of deadly muscle memories runs through his head. And after several aisles of sharp and blunt things alike, Kyungsoo realises this : Everything in his mind's arsenal is _quick_. One jab, one strike, some to incapacitate, some to incapacitate permanently. 

_Merciful_ , if Kyungsoo is to be sentimental about it. But he doesn’t let himself run with that thought. 

If he focuses really hard on the image of a gun, Kyungsoo finds that he comes up with the same thing. Imagines places where a target is intantly dead or disabled. A hitman, then? Hitwoman?

He moves to the last aisle, dread already simmering in his gut, because a hitman is a hitman, but a hitman who also tortures people would be something else entirely. He draws a deep breath, looks at the arrays of pliers and questionable tools and almost cries with relief when nothing comes to mind. No easy way to wrench a fingernail or cut off someone's fingers with the maximum amount of pain. 

A few tears escaped anyway and Kyungsoo chuckles ruefully, past caring that he’s essentially crying in the middle of a hardware store because his soulmate is not a deranged psycho who plucks people's fingernails for fun.

He can work with this.

**

With morality semi-out of the way, Kyungsoo feels more comfortable actually exploring the breadth of his soulmate's skills. Not that he says this to anyone else, because Chanyeol would freak out and Jongin might actually call the police by principle alone. 

Kyungsoo finds out that not only is he now proficient with every kind of blade, firearm, and weaponized mundane object possible (Whoever knew that the hipster stainless straw Chanyeol gave him can be used to poke someone's brain out in a pinch?), his own body can be just as deadly. If, of course, he has the same amount of training and muscle definition that his soulmate's body has. 

The whole thing gets Kyungsoo wondering on what the life of a hitman consists of. What his soulmate's schedule 's like, what they eat and how well they sleep. He wonders as he goes through his classes and daily routine, reminds himself to look at easier recipes that someone with little time can whip up. Jots down things that are nutritious yet quick - because surely being a hitman requires a lot of energy, right? - stops to fully appreciate the absurdity of the whole situation, but continues anyway. 

He settles on a few stir-fry variations, lots of meat, easily thrown-together snacks with peanut butter and honey for quick energy boosts - Makes the set of recipes again and again to ingrain it to his muscle memory and hopes it sticks enough so it transfer to his soulmate. Hopes his soulmate is no Jongin and actually knows how to do grocery shopping. 

**

Upon having to break out their apartment's first aid kit - an otherwise usual routine when one is friends with Park Chanyeol, Kyungsoo realises, with some horror, that his first aid skills are just as lacking as before he turned twenty-one. He knows about four ways to strangle someone with a swathe of bandages, but just one measly technique he once googled on how to actually put it on. 

Sure, if his soulmate is a hitman or someone working for some crime syndicate, they'd probably have a dedicated medical staff somewhere around them. But that's assuming his soulmate actually survived what hit them and can actually meet said medic. But what if they are alone? What if they are somewhere without any feasible backup or way out?

Kyungsoo doesn’t sleep easily that night. 

**

Kyungsoo enrols himself in a first aid class, just in case. 

Sure, he's learned a thing or two during his basic training. But a refresher is always useful, and Kyungsoo keeps his eyes glued on the instructor as she goes through the basics. CPR and handling a choking person would apply to someone else, but still good to know. The second meeting has them covering bleeding wounds and shock, and Kyungsoo's ears immediately perk up.

Tourniquets he can manage, applying pressure and elevating the injured area also something he remembers from basic training. Kyungsoo frowns at the tourniquet he's wrapping around his course partner's imaginary injury before his hand shoots up in question. 

"What about stab wounds where the weapon is still inside the victim?" 

The instructor blinks "Well, in the unlikely event of a stab wound with the weapon still inside the victim, it's usually best to leave the foreign object be until you can get proper medical attention - As it might actually be stemming the flow of blood"

"And you still apply pressure?"

"Ah - yes. It will be best to apply direct pressure on either side of the foreign object"

Kyungsoo nods, putting down a mental note even as he searches his head for any other possible scenarios.

"Very good, class. When you're done with your tourniquet, your partner can take turns and apply it to you. Ah, yes?" Kyungsoo's hand shoots up again.

“What if it's a gunshot wound?”

By the end of the session, the instructor (and some of his classmates) is starting to look at him funny. Kyungsoo doesn’t really blame them. 

He ends up reading an unholy amount of articles and questionable internet forums on impromptu ways to treat gunshot and stab wounds, and hopes for the best.

**

After two months of having a soulmate, Kyungsoo finds that he now speaks fluent Mandarin. 

He realises this as he thanks the old woman behind the counter of his favorite Chinese place. The woman barely speaks a word of Korean, but cooks up the heartiest dishes and makes what must be the prettiest dumplings in Seoul. 

“Xiexie, ayi. Wèi dào zhēn bàng” Kyungsoo only registers what he's said by the time it's out of his mouth, eyes widening even as the old woman’s own eyes lights up with recognition.

“Wo bu zhidao ni hui shuo zhongwen!” - She doesn’t know that he speaks Mandarin, the woman gushes, excitement painting her lined face. That makes two of us, auntie, Kyungsoo thinks ruefully. 

The unfamiliar words fall from his mouth with surprising ease, and he delights in talking with the woman, finding out that he looks a lot like his son (hence all the extra dumplings) and cajoling the secret of the restaurant's flawless dumpling wrapper (Add hot water to the dough along with cold water!) before promising her he'll be back for his usual biweekly lunch.

Kyungsoo cooks dumplings for dinner, and feels a tiny bit closer to his soulmate. 

**

It takes another few weeks to discover that his soulmate does origami.

Kyungsoo had been absentmindedly folding a piece of receipt paper to throw away when his fingers folds the paper just _so_ \- Once, twice, the creases too sharp and purposeful to be nothing. Kyungsoo follows the tug in his fingers, marvels as the paper transforms into what looks to be a penguin. 

He carefully sets the small penguin in front of him, something warm blooming inside his chest in knowing that his soulmate is also capable of something so delicate. Curious and a little excited, Kyungsoo reaches for more paper and lets his fingers work, surrounding himself with a menagerie of paper animals until Chanyeol and Jongin comes home and pokes their heads into his room. 

“So, hapkido athlete with a penchant for origami?” Chanyeol raises an eyebrow, and Kyungsoo shrugs. 

Jongin kneels beside him, picks up a paper bear from between a paper dog and a paper dinosaur, turns it gently in his large fingers.

"I like your soulmate, hyung" Jongin says softly, smile tender and slightly wistful - and Kyungsoo thinks he might just agree. 

**

Four months in, Kyungsoo finds out about the Chinese brush painting while glazing a batch of cookies with eggs. He makes a small trip to a nearby Daiso, and sits in his room - The smell of paper and cheap ink all around him as unfamiliar characters and mountain ranges take shape beneath experimental flicks of his wrist. 

A cherry blossom tree - One lone flower budding hopefully on its cusp - turns out better than expected, and he frames it and keeps it on his bedside table. Kyungsoo sees it every time he wakes up and it makes him smile, sometimes. 

**

Five months, and Kyungsoo plays a tune on Chanyeol's keyboard as they lie around his best friend's studio. It's nothing fancy - Just a snippet of some spring breakup song that Kyungsoo's been hearing a lot in cafes and shopfronts, but Chanyeol is quick to respond.

"Oh _come on_ , now your soulmate is just showing off!" Chanyeol wails, several shades of disgruntled. The other boy had turned twenty-one even earlier than Kyungsoo, but so far his anonymous soulmate has yet to yield any visible clues other than Chanyeol suddenly being able to pick locks with a chopstick. "Hapkido, origami, calligraphy _and_ piano while my soulmate's probably a small-time burglar", Chanyeol laments. 

Kyungsoo doesn't tell him that his own soulmate is probably a triad assassin, and joins Jongin in laughing at Chanyeol instead. 

**

By the sixth month, Kyungsoo won’t admit this to anyone, but he thinks he might be a little bit taken with his soulmate. 

Just a little bit. 

**

Kyungsoo has always found it perplexing - the fact that the universe created this elaborate system of shared knowledge between soulmates while _not_ providing a similar system for them to actually find each other. 

Soulmates are ultimately the bearers of a single soul, and so they say that eventually, both half will inexplicably draw one to the other. Those who have found their soulmates simply says that it just happens - And that when you do meet your soulmate, you'll know.

The whole narrative sounds vague as hell, takes all possible effort and agency away from his hands and Kyungsoo resents it more than a little bit. Despite all of the rosy advertisements he's been given through life, he knows that a lot of people never actually find their soulmates. It's not that rare for soulmates to differ too much in age, be born in too far off places, or to just never meet at all.

Kyungsoo would not admit it to anyone else, but he doesn't want that for himself.

**

Kyungsoo starts with the internet, because what else is one supposed to do when running on zero clues and a wholly uncooperative universe. 

His soulmate speaks almost perfect Chinese – And together with their decidedly unusual skill set and the blind hope that they do live in Seoul, Kyungsoo hazards that there's a healthy chance they have some connection to Chinese triads instead of the regular Jokpok.

As it happens, there are only two major Chinese-based organisations operating around the Seoul Metropolitan area, and many incognito searches later, Kyungsoo has isolated each of their active area of operations - One around Daerim-Dong, and one around Garibong-Dong in Western Seoul. 

His next step is a gamble, of sorts. There has always been debate in the scientific community in what actually quantifies as "skills" in the soulmate sharing system they're born with. The general consensus is that it's the learned mechanisms of doing something - Part muscle memory, part the neural connections that makes up said repeated activity. Essentially, you transfer your skills, but not the personal memory nor knowledge that's associated with it. You might be able to replicate your soulmate's piano skills, for example - But you won't have the repertoire of songs that they've memorised.

But then again, there are accounts of soulmates recognising unfamiliar things - Streets, password sequences, songs their soulmates played for their recitals - And it got Kyungsoo wondering. Researchers have argued that when mundane activities such as walking and the act of entering a password are repeated over the course of a long time, it also becomes muscle memory. Given that the connection is strong enough, it's arguable that something like recognising the streets your soulmate walks by every day can be transferred as well. 

Kyungsoo tests this under the pretense of morning jogs. He runs around Garibong-dong, letting his feet take over and getting nowhere - Tries for two weekends before chalking it up as a lost cause. But then his feet hits the pavements of Daerim-dong, and Kyungsoo just _knows_. 

He runs easily through unfamiliar sidewalks and smaller alleys, making turns and ducking along the morning bustle of shopkeepers and delivery trucks until he slows to a halt in front of a small convenience store that he automatically walks into. 

His feet takes him into the wall of freezers on the end of the store - hand reaching out to grab what appears to be a pouch of pear and bellflower juice. Kyungsoo can't help but chuckle, strangely more elated at the small discovery than the fact that he's pinned down what organisation his soulmate works under - fully aware that he's grinning like a lunatic in front of a convenience store freezer. 

His soulmate, it would seem, likes fancy herbal drinks.

**

Kyungsoo is acutely aware that there is what basically looks like a serial killer wall on his room now - Taped up neatly alongside his calendar and class schedules. It consists of a large printed map of Daerim-dong surrounded with small post-it notes and pins above areas of known gangster activity. And amongst the jumble of handwritings and newspaper clippings, the black and white emblem of Shengmìng zhishù - Or "The Tree of Life", as the organisation calls themselves. 

It's a more obscure crew than say, the now infamous Yanbian Heuksapa - Their members allegedly a mix of Koreans and Joseon-joks thriving in Daerim Dong's busy neighborhoods, as well as some immigrants fresh off Mainland China. It seems to be a more internationally connected organisation too, compared to its fellow syndicates. And Kyungsoo's pretty sure that his soulmate works under the Shengmìng zhishù - most Jokpoks and deal with more domestic and mundane affairs like extortion and real estate - Barely any assassinations required. 

The Shengmìng zhishù, however, is another matter entirely.

“It's for research” Kyungsoo shrugs when Chanyeol asks him for the umpteenth time, his best friend's wide eyes uncharacteristically wary as they flick from Kyungsoo to the wall and then back again. He’s not exactly lying. 

"Right" Chanyeol finally says, not sounding convinced at all. "Right on"

Some days, Kyungsoo is not convinced with what he's doing either. 

**

His breakthrough came in the form of one Zhang Yixing – Jongin's newly discovered soulmate with the gentle, dimpled smile and what appears to be quite the dark past. 

Were the situation any different, Kyungsoo would probably have objected to his childhood friend being soulmates with an ex-gangster. As it were, Kyungsoo's own soulmate is most definitely _still_ a gangster, so there's that. 

As with everyone who frequents their shared apartment, Yixing eventually sees his serial killer wall. But unlike everyone else, Yixing studies the wall in silence - his long fingers tracing the emblem of the Shengmìng zhishù in something almost akin to fondness. 

And then he picks up the little paper penguin atop Kyungsoo's dresser, expression gentling as he finally, finally looks at Kyungsoo. 

"You're looking for Chen" It's not a question. 

"Wait, you… _know_ my soulmate?" Kyungsoo asks, incredulous. 

"Not directly" Yixing shakes his head, placing the origami back carefully to its original place. "But enough. You've gotten pretty close, you know" Yixing gestures at his wall. 

"..How?"

“Let's just say I had an…interesting youth" The older boy smiles, kind yet self-depreciating all at the same time "I can’t tell you much else, you understand. It's safer that way”

"You're…not going to try and stop me?" Kyungsoo peers warily from behind his glasses, frozen in his perch on the edge of his bed.

"Would it have worked?"

Kyungsoo shakes his head no, and Yixing's dimple deepens with his smile. 

**

_Chen._

The name is the last piece of the puzzle that Kyungsoo needs, his key to go deeper. He plants himself in the corners of dingy PC bangs - sinking down layer by layer into more and more dubious sites and message boards. As he struggles with VPNs and all manner of safety precautions one has to have this deep into the dark parts of the internet, Kyungsoo finds out that his soulmate is of no help at all in the tech department.

Kyungsoo, however, finds out that his soulmate is something of a legend in Seoul's underworld. Chen : Enforcer, protector, and executor all rolled into one. Accounts of him vary from his astonishing head count to grateful reverence from people who were allegedly saved from certain death or human trafficking. 

Some argues that "Chen" is something of a collective - A group of separate individuals operating under the same name. And yet some other claims that Chen is but a myth - A narrative that the Shengmìng zhishù crafts as both symbol and threat to represent the organisation.

Kyungsoo knows two things, though. One, that Chen is but one person - Enforcer, protector, executor, and his soulmate. Two, that the only times that people have actually seen Chen is when he kills someone - His presence a message to those who dare to cross the path of the Shengming zhishù. 

And that's when Kyungsoo is going to find him.

**

The Shengming zhishù stands out from the various other crews in Seoul for not tolerating any human trafficking of any sort inside their turf. Which is why their conflict with YGX - a rival organisation infringing on their territory - got to the point that it did.

After some digging, Kyungsoo learns that YGX deals solely in human trafficking - Shipping illegal immigrants to and from the Northern part of Mainland China and beyond, but especially girls for the sex industry and the increasingly prolific business of porn and snuff films. If Kyungsoo had slight reservations to the things that his soulmate gets embroiled into in his work, then what YGX does on a daily basis made him physically recoil. 

The higher ups of the Shengming zhishù seem to share the same sentiment, especially when the other crew starts operating around Daerim-Dong. Which was probably what started the almost systemic succession of deaths among YGX's key players. Every death had been a symbolic warning - each men and their whole entourage slain with a neat precision that can only be Chen's.

And if the people in the message boards were right, then Chen's last target is Jang Hyunsuk - The leader of YGX himself. Who, despite the deaths of practically all his lieutenants, is still partying it up for all that he's worth. 

Which is how Kyungsoo finds himself in the back alley of The Waning Moon club - Hands and face cold even as the people inside writhe and grind against each other, as drinks are spiked and exchanged and a man who thinks himself above the law, above everything smiles and laughs in the centre of it all. Kyungsoo shivers in the darkness and he waits. 

Waits for his soulmate to kill a man. 

**

Kyungsoo knows that something is definitely going on inside the building when the noises inside shifts - the rhythmic bass reverberating against the wall mingling with something else - Screams? Gunshots? 

He waits, tense, as the noises quiet down, even the thumping of the music diminishing slowly and he is left with a disquieting silence that's only broken by the loud bang of the club's back door opening.

Kyungsoo recognises the man running out of the building immediately. Jang Hyunsuk - half of his pristine white suit awash in blood that is not his, a crazed look in his eyes even as the open door streams out the sound of gunshots and struggle. 

Kyungsoo tries to step back into the shadows of the alley - Too late, as the harried man catches his eyes and runs toward him, towards his escape.

Instinct, and what must be years and years of training on his soulmate's part, takes over, and Kyungsoo catches the older man by the lapels of his stained suit before he flips him over and throws. 

Jang Hyunsuk lands with a sickening thud on the pavement, just in time for a second person to run through the club's back door. This time a slightly-built young man - probably Kyungsoo's own age - dressed all in black, a spatter of blood on his pale cheeks and oh - 

_Oh._

Something clicks, somewhere inside him as the boy - his soulmate - approaches them, taking in the strange tableau before him. Kyungsoo, with his black hoodie and faded jeans, the leader of YGX sprawled between them.

His soulmate stares at him, eyes wild and dark before something too seems to register in his countenance and Kyungsoo wants to laugh and never stop. All these times he had scoffed and laughed, and it turns out you _do_ know the moment you meet your soulmate. 

Kyungsoo nods, and looks away right before a loud crack reverberates through the empty alley. When he turns back, Jang Hyunsuk is sprawled on the ground - obviously dead - and his soulmate is looking at him, expression obscured by the darkness.

Before Kyungsoo can think to say anything, a small, strong hand envelops his and takes him running. 

**

They find a dingy room cafe nearby, and his soulmate practically manhandles him inside a room - planting Kyungsoo in front of him and methodically checks him head to toe for injuries. Kyungsoo doesn't know how to feel under the scrutiny, especially when his soulmate's eyes lock on his, hands still firmly on his arm.

"I'm sorry" His soulmate's voice is deep, melodic, almost "That you had to see that"

"It's okay" Kyungsoo says, surprising himself with how _okay_ he actually is with the whole thing "I…was kind of expecting that to happen, actually. You know, hence me, being there?"

The boy before him tilts his head ever so slightly, sharp eyes shifting to appraise Kyungsoo in a different way entirely - As if he's a puzzle to be solved. Perhaps like Kyungsoo himself had appraised his wall with all the pieces of his soulmate stuck on it.

"How did you find me?"

Through sheer pig-headedness and a deep mistrust towards the universe, Kyungsoo wants to say, but grins instead. "I've been told that I can be pretty stubborn when I want"

His soulmate's laugh, just like his voice, is deep and bright, and Kyungsoo is perplexed to find that he wants to hear more of the sound. 

"Thank you" His soulmate says after a while, the edges of his eyes still crinkling with laughter, "For being stubborn. For finding me"

"It's Kyungsoo, by the way. Do Kyungsoo" 

"Kyungsoo-yah" The other boy says back, softly, as if testing the name for size, and Kyungsoo feels a strange tightness in his chest at the simple gesture. 

"What do I call you? Is it…is it Chen?"

Something dark and sharp passes across his soulmate's eyes - Reminding Kyungsoo that the other boy _did_ just kill a person in cold blood "Goodness, no" He laughs again, more subdued now "Not anymore. It's just - It's just Jongdae now. Kim Jongdae"

 _Kim Jongdae._

Kyungsoo likes the sound of it on his tongue. 

**

Kyungsoo learns many things about Jongdae as their weeks together roll by, things that did not translate through their shared connection. He learns that Jongdae had been an orphan taken in by the Shengming zhishù when he was but an adolescent - Trained to be a weapon, to be _Chen_. That Jongdae had been paying his way out of the whole situation – The organisation looser now that Jongdae’s childhood friend Zitao had taken over from his late father. And that Kyungsoo had caught up with him in a mission that made Jongdae essentially a free man. 

“I’ll still do jobs if Taozi asks me to - but I won’t be _theirs_ anymore” and there is a wonder in his voice, something so disbelieving and so earnest that Kyungsoo just wants to hug the boy in front of him, swaddle him in a blanket and hide him from the world, even though he knows that the world had thrown so much worse and his soulmate had endured.

He learns that Jongdae wants to enrol in a community college – His days wide open now that he's not just Chen anymore but also Kim Jongdae. Learns that Jongdae has an amazing singing voice and tentatively wants to learn music formally, maybe be a vocal teacher one day. 

And even though Kyungsoo promises himself to take everything slowly, the following weekend has him at Jongdae's doorsteps with a bunch of flyers for nearby colleges and a full checklist of what he'll have to prepare to enrol, making Jongdae laugh that deep, bright laugh that Kyungsoo wants to keep hearing forever. 

**

Kyungsoo also learns that Jongdae hasn't always been good in origami - Or calligraphy, or the piano, for that matter.

“Yah, I learned all those for you” Jongdae chuckles, uncharacteristically sheepish, and Kyungsoo blinks, sitting side by side on Jongdae's now familiar sofa.

“You were giving me all these wonderful things, Soo” Jongdae says softly, and Kyungsoo’s heart totally does not skip a beat at the nickname “Suddenly I can make myself dinner, know what kinds of things to buy in the supermarket, how to dress my wounds, and all I was giving you was, I don’t know…how to disembowel someone with a spoon or something”

Butter knife, Kyungsoo amends in his head, but otherwise stays quiet, marvelling at the faint spots of rose blooming across Jongdae's cheekbones. 

“It just didn't seem fair. So I wanted you to have something nice too, you know"

"Thank you" Kyungsoo says, after what feels like ages, even as Jongdae shakes his head, leaning his head closer to Kyungsoo - So close that Kyungsoo can probably count each of his ridiculously long lashes - Not that he's given to such useless activities, of course. 

"No" Jongdae's breath is warm against his cheek "Thank you"

And then they kiss. The first time of many. And Kyungsoo may have to ask Jongdae later why he is suddenly so good in this when this is only his first kiss. Not that he's complaining. 

Soulmates are ultimately the bearers of a single soul - or so they say. And although the logic still doesn't check out with him, Kyungsoo is actually, honestly, pretty okay with it all. 

**

**Author's Note:**

> I stumbled upon a huge Soulmate AU list on tumblr and was immediately smitten with this shared skill trope. The whole time I was writing this I’m just imagining if I have a soulmate I might be getting all these cool skills like idk data analysis or martial arts or heart surgery and all they’ll be getting is a shit ton of useless internet facts and the ability to tell Kpop boys apart. What about you? What would _you_ give your soulmate?
> 
> As always, thank you for reading! If you have the time, any feedback or comments would be deeply appreciated :) Take care, enjoy the holidays, and eat well!


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